Lee: ‘My experience in Seattle has been great’

Cliff Lee talks to reporters at Safeco Field after his trade to Texas was announced Friday afternoon. (Getty Images/Otto Greule Jr.)

Midway through Friday’s rumblings and rumors, Cliff Lee sent Jack Zduriencik a text message asking if he thought he was going to be pitching the evening’s game against the New York Yankees, as scheduled.

“I”ll be in touch with you shortly,” the Mariners general manager texted back.

A little while later Lee got a phone call from Zduriencik informing him he was headed not to the New York Yankees, as the veteran pitcher expected, but to the Texas Rangers.

For the 31-year-old pitcher, it’s a last-to-first move as he goes from the struggling Mariners to a Texas team that leads the American League West by 5 1/2 games, the largest margin in baseball, with a 50-35 record.

“Anytime you get traded there is uncertainty and you don’t know what to expect,” Lee said at a hastily-called press conference at Safeco Field before catching a 5:15 p.m. flight to Texas. “But I do know one thing. They’ve got a great team and they’re in first place. I’m just going to go there and do everything I can to help them with the direction they’re already heading.”

Lee will be joining his fourth team in two seasons. He was traded from Cleveland to Philadelphia in midseason last year, in time to help the Phillies win the World Series. Now he’ll try to do the same in his move from Seattle to Texas.

“My experience in Seattle has been great,” he said. “Great fans, great teammates. I love the guys. Unbelievable. The weather is just starting to get nice and now I’m gone. But it’s been a good ride.

“Obviously we’d have liked to have won more games. I don’t think anybody in spring training expected it would turn out the way it has, but it is what it is. Now I’m a Texas Ranger and I’m going to go try to help that team win.”

Lee heard all the rumblings about a trade to the Yankees, whom he could have joined simply by changing dugouts in the current series at Safeco. He called Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia, a former teammate in Cleveland, on Thursday night to find out if he knew anything.

“It seemed like that nearly happened, but it’s not what happened,” Lee said. “I’m a Ranger now and that’s it.”

His thoughts on almost being a Yankee?

“If and buts. It didn’t happen,” Lee said. “I’ll play for whatever team wants me. I’ve enjoyed every team I’ve ever been on. I haven’t had a bad experience yet.”

Then he headed to the Mariners clubhouse and began packing his belongings in between hug with teammates he’d just gotten to know in recent months.